AFSCA Recalls Goat Cheese Due to Possible E. coli STEC

The AFSCA recalled on June 18, 2026 a goat cheese, after receiving notification through the European rapid alert system for food and feed (RASFF) for possible presence of Escherichia coli producing Shiga toxin (STEC). A retail chain, one of the chains distributing the product, immediately withdrew the cheese from its points of sale, and the authority asked consumers not to eat it and to return it to the store of purchase.

That the finding reached Belgium through the RASFF system, and not from a domestic investigation, illustrates how food surveillance works in practice in Europe: a product produced in one country, distributed in several countries of the bloc, can be placed under alert in all its destination markets based on a single finding reported by the authority of any of them. The goat cheese with soft paste and natural rind, like some artisanal cheeses, does not receive heat treatment after production, which leaves it exposed to any fecal contamination occurring during milking or processing of raw milk.

For TAAG, the case confirms the value of a shared alert network between countries for intra-community export products: when a single finding reported by one authority results in a simultaneous withdrawal in multiple destination markets, the window of consumer exposure is drastically reduced compared to a scenario where each country had to detect the same risk independently.